The best laid plans of mice and men…

President Obama is now asking Congress for at least $50 billion in long-term investments in the nation’s roads, railways, and runways.

Whether the timing is just a political ploy for the election or not doesn’t matter — this country needs to put people to work, and this country needs to improve the crumbling infrastructure that hasn’t been a focus since the 1960’s.

The specifics of his plan include rebuilding 150,000 miles of roads, constructing and maintaining 4,000 miles of railways, building high-speed rail systems, and repairing 150 miles of airport runways (while also upgrading the nation’s air traffic system).

The plan also creates a permanent infrastructure fund that would focus on national and regional infrastructure projects to keep momentum behind continuous infrastructure improvements.

This spending package is very different from the initial stimulus package; where as the stimulus package focused on spending to prop up the sagging economy in the short term, these infrastructure projects are long term investments in the country and the economy and likely would not show substantial job increases for several months.

In short, President Obama’s Labor Day announcement is intended to get American labor back to work — permanently.